The mission of the seventy: its character, testimony rendered in power

The mission of the seventy follows in Luke 10, a mission
important in its character for the development of the ways of
God. This character is, in fact, different in some respects from
that of the beginning of Luke 9. The mission is founded on the
glory of Christ manifested in chapter 9. This of necessity, settles
the question more decisively of the Lord's relations with the Jews:
for His glory came after, and, as to His human position, was the
result of His rejection by the nation. This rejection was not yet
accomplished: this glory was only revealed to three of His
disciples; so that the Lord still exercised His ministry among the
people. But we see these alterations in it. He insists on that
which is moral and eternal, the position into which it would bring
His disciples, the true effect of His testimony in the world, and
the judgment about to fall upon the Jews. Nevertheless the harvest
was great. For love, unchilled by sin, saw the need through the
outward opposition; but there were few moved by this love. The Lord
of the harvest alone could send forth true labourers. Already the
Lord announces that they are as lambs among wolves. What a change
from the presentation of the kingdom to the people of God! They
were to trust (like the twelve) to the care of the Messiah present
on the earth, and who influenced the heart with divine power. They
were to go as the Lord's labourers, openly avowing their object,
not toiling for their food, but as having claims on His
part. Wholly devoted to their work, they were to salute no
one. Time pressed. Judgment was coming. There were those in Israel
who were not children of peace. The remnant would be distinguished
by the effect of their mission on the heart, not yet
judicially. But peace should rest on the children of peace. These
messengers exercised the power gained by Jesus over the enemy, and
which He could thus bestow (and this was much more than a miracle);
and they were to declare unto those whom they visited that the
kingdom of God had come nigh unto them. Important testimony! When
the judgment was not executed, it required faith to recognise it in
a testimony. If they were not received, they were to denounce the
city, assuring them that, received or not, the kingdom of God had
come nigh. What a solemn testimony, now that Jesus was going to be
rejected -- a rejection that filled up the measure of man's
iniquity! It would be more tolerable for infamous Sodom, in the day
that judgment should be executed, than for that city. This clearly
points out the character of the testimony. The Lord denounces* the
cities in which He had wrought, and assures His disciples that to
reject them in their mission was the same thing as to reject Him,
and that, in rejecting Him, He who had sent Him was rejected -- the
God of Israel -- the Father. On their return they announce the
power that had accompanied their mission; demons were subject to
their word. The Lord replies that in effect these tokens of power
had made present to His mind the full establishment of the kingdom
-- Satan cast out entirely from heaven (an establishment of which
these miracles were only a sample); but that there was something
more excellent than this, and in which they might rejoice -- their
names were written in heaven. The power manifested was true, its
results sure, in the establishment of the kingdom but something
else was beginning to appear -- a heavenly people were dawning, who
should have their portion with Him, whom the unbelief of the Jews
and of the world was driving back to heaven.

{*In verse 25 of this chapter, as well as in Luke 13: 34, we
have examples of the moral order in Luke, of which we have spoken
(p. 232). The testimonies of the Lord are perfectly in place. They
are of infinite assistance in understanding the whole connection of
the passage, and their position here throws great light on their
own meaning. Historical order is not the question here. The
position taken by Israel -- by the disciples -- by all, through the
rejection of Christ, is the subject of which the Holy Ghost treats.
These passages relate to it, and show very plainly the condition of
the people who had been visited by Jesus, their true character, the
counsels of God in bringing in the heavenly things through the fall
of Israel, and the connection between the rejection of Christ and
the introduction of the heavenly things, and of eternal life, and
of the soul. Nevertheless the law was not broken. In fact its place
was taken by grace, which, outside the law, did that which could
not be done through the law. We shall see this in going on with our
chapter.}

The heavenly position of a heavenly people

This very clearly unfolds the position now taken. The testimony
of the kingdom rendered in power, leaving Israel without excuse,
Jesus passed into another position -- into the heavenly one. This
was the true subject of joy. The disciples, however, did not yet
understand it. But the Person and the power of Him who was to
introduce them into the heavenly glory of the kingdom, His right to
the glorious kingdom of God, have been revealed to them by the
Father. The blinding of human pride, and the Father's grace towards
babes, became Him, who fulfilled the counsels of His sovereign
grace through the humiliation of Jesus, and were in accordance with
His heart who came to fulfil them. Moreover all things were given
to Jesus. The Son was too glorious to be known, save by the Father,
who was Himself only known by the revelation of the Son. To Him
must men come. The root of the difficulty in receiving Him lay in
the glory of His Person, who was known only to the Father, and this
action and glory of the Father, which needed the Son Himself to
reveal it. All this was in Jesus there on earth. But He could tell
His disciples in private that, having seen in Him the Messiah and
His glory, they had seen that which kings and prophets had in vain
desired to see. The Father had been proclaimed to them, yet they
but little understood it. In the mind of God it was their portion,
realised afterwards by the presence of the Holy Ghost, the Spirit
of adoption.

The power of the kingdom; the Lord's call to rejoice in a place and name in heaven

We may remark here, the power of the kingdom bestowed on the
disciples; their enjoyment at that moment (by the presence of the
Messiah Himself, bringing with Him the power of the kingdom which
overthrew that of the enemy) of the sight of those things of which
the prophets had spoken; at the same time the rejection of their
testimony, and the judgment of Israel among whom it was rendered;
and, finally, the call of the Lord (while acknowledging in their
work all the power that shall establish the kingdom) to rejoice,
not in the kingdom thus established on earth, but in that sovereign
grace of God who, in His eternal counsels, had granted them a place
and a name in heaven, in connection with their rejection on
earth. The importance of this chapter is evident in this point of
view. Luke constantly brings in the better and unseen part in a
heavenly world.

The relationship and glory of the Father and the Son; the lawyer's inquiry as to eternal life

The extent of the dominion of Jesus in connection with this
change, and the revelation of the counsels of God that accompanied
it, are given us in verse 22, as well as the discovery of the
relationships and the glory of the Father and of the Son; at the
same time also the grace shown to the humble according to the
character and the rights of God the Father Himself. Afterwards we
find the development of the change as to moral character. The
teacher of the law desires to know the conditions of eternal
life. This is not the kingdom, nor heaven, but a part of the Jewish
apprehension of the relationship of man with God. The possession of
life was proposed to the Jews by the law. It had, by scriptural
developments subsequent to the law, been discovered to be eternal
life, which they then, at least the Pharisees, attached as such to
the observance of that law -- a thing possessed by the glorified in
heaven, by the blessed on earth during the millennium, which we now
possess in earthen vessels; which the law, as interpreted by
conclusions drawn from the prophetic books, proposed as the result
of obedience:* "The man that doeth these things shall live by
them."

{*It is to be remarked, that the Lord never used the word
eternal life in speaking of the effect of obedience. "The gift of
God is eternal life." If they had been obedient, that life might
have been endless; but in fact and truth, now that sin had entered,
obedience was not the way to have eternal life, and the Lord does
not so state it.}

The Lord's answer; the broken law

The lawyer therefore asks what it is that he must do. The answer
was plain: the law (with all its ordinances, its ceremonies, all
the conditions of God's government, which the people had broken,
and the violation of which led to the judgment announced by the
prophets -- judgment that should be followed by the establishment,
on God's part, of the kingdom in grace) -- the law, I say,
contained the kernel of the truth in this respect, and distinctly
expressed the conditions of life, if man was to enjoy it according
to human righteousness -- righteousness wrought by himself, by
which he himself should live. These conditions were summed up in a
very few words -- to love God perfectly, and one's neighbour as
oneself. The lawyer giving this summary, the Lord accepts it and
repeats the words of the Lawgiver: "This do, and thou shalt live."
But man has not done it and is conscious that he has not. As to God
he is far away; man easily gets rid of Him; he will render Him some
outward services and make his boast in them. But man is near; his
selfishness makes him alive to the performance of this precept,
which, if observed, would be his happiness -- make this world a
kind of paradise. Disobedience to it is repeated every moment, in
the circumstances of each day, which bring this selfishness into
play. All that surrounds him (his social ties) makes man conscious
of these violations of this precept, even when the soul would not
of itself be troubled about it. Here the lawyer's heart betrays
itself. Who, he asks, is my neighbour?

Grace manifested and introduced by the man Christ Jesus; the love of the good Samaritan

The Lord's answer exhibits the moral change which has taken
place through the introduction of grace -- through the
manifestation of this grace in man, in His own Person. Our
relationships with one another are now measured by the divine
nature in us, and this nature is love. Man under the law measured
himself by the importance he could attach to himself, which is
always the opposite of love. The flesh gloried in a nearness to God
which was not real, which did not belong to participation in His
nature. The priest and the Levite pass by on the other side. The
Samaritan, despised as such, did not ask who was his neighbour. The
love that was in his heart made him a neighbour to any one who was
in need. This is what God Himself did in Christ; but then legal and
carnal distinctions disappeared before this principle. The love
that acted according to its own impulses found the occasion of its
exercise in the need that came before it. Here ends this part of
the Lord's discourses. A new subject begins in verse 38.

The two great means of blessing: the word and prayer

From that verse to the end of Luke 11: 13 the Lord makes known
to His disciples the two great means of blessing -- the word and
prayer. In connection with the word, we find the energy that
attaches itself to the Lord, in order to receive it from Himself,
and that leaves everything in order to hear His word, because the
soul is laid hold of by the communications of God in grace. We may
remark that these circumstances are connected with the change that
had been wrought at that solemn moment. The reception of the word
takes the place of the attentions that were due to the
Messiah. These attentions were demanded by the presence of a
Messiah on the earth; but, seeing the condition man was in (for he
rejected the Saviour), he needed the word; and Jesus, in His
perfect love, will have nothing else. For man, for the glory of
God, but one thing was needful; and it is that which Jesus
desires. As to Himself, He would go without everything for
that. But Martha, though preparing for the Lord, which was right
surely, yet shows how much self is inherent in this kind of care;
for she did not like to have all the trouble of it.